The present disclosure relates generally to systems for backing up and restoring data, and more particularly to computing devices for backing up data, and autonomously authenticating users to restore the backed up data.
Computers are generally very reliable. Sometime, however, they break down. And when they do, valuable data stored on those computers may be lost. Most users typically perform regular backups of their data utilizing a specialized backup utility to help protect against inadvertent data loss. This way, once a computer that has lost its data has been fixed, the backed up data can be restored to the computer utilizing a specialized restore utility.
Conventionally, data restoration is performed by mounting a medium onto which the data has been backed up, such as a tape drive, for example, to a computer. However, mounting such devices can only be performed on mutually compatible systems. In some cases, data can be backed up to the cloud; however, such systems require complicated security mechanisms to ensure that users can only access the data they are authorized to access. Further, restoration from such systems is not always timely.
Currently, once data has been lost, users wish to have faster access to their restored data. Additionally, many users balk at the prospect of having to open support tickets with their administrators to have that data restored. At the same time, network administrators want to maintain security of the data, and thus, wish to provide the users with access only to the backed up data they are authorized to access.